(paragraphs 3-8A and B2-B30 of IFRS 17)

BC63 Some argued that IFRS 17 should deal with all aspects of financial reporting by entities that issue insurance contracts to ensure that the financial reporting is internally consistent. They noted that regulatory requirements often cover all aspects of an entity's insurance business, as do some national accounting requirements. However, the Board decided that IFRS 17 should apply only to insurance contracts and should be applicable to all entities holding those contracts. The Board decided to base its approach on the type of activity rather than on the type of the entity because:

(a) a robust definition of an insurer that could be applied consistently from country to country would be difficult to create;

(b) entities that might meet the definition frequently have major activities in other areas as well as in insurance, and would need to determine how and to what extent these non-insurance activities would be accounted for in a manner similar to insurance activities or in a manner similar to how other entities account for their non-insurance activities;

(c) if an entity that issues insurance contracts accounted for a transaction in one way and an entity that does not issue insurance contracts accounted for the same transaction in a different way, comparability across entities would be reduced.